Oh, the Sweetest Thing

I made beignets (Fry Bread as my father-in-law calls them, he grew up in Navajo Nation so that's what they will always be to him) this morning for breakfast with Nutella. I think Gabe liked them.

Pumpkin picking

Found the camera battery!! We went to pick out pumpkins last night at this great pumpkin place (Tucsonians- corner of Thornydale and Orange Grove in the Sunflower parking lot). Nate and I are going to give them our business from now on. They had the coolest assortment of pumpkins and they give little baby white ones out to the kids for free. As always, it was impossible to get a semi-pleased look on Gabe's face for the pictures.

How much mess could a toddler make...

A lot. No pictures, because in the heat of my anger in these moments, I wasn't thinking about grabbing my camera. Gabriel LOVES to draw. Like, unceasingly. He could color all day long if I let him. So we have quite a few crayon and marker mishaps.

• Before I had the chance to hang up our canvas painting of Jesus, it was leaning against the wall. Now, he has a face full of green crayon. I would like to think he has a sense of humor about these sort of things...
• Black, red and blue scribbles along the hallway walls and every time he walks past these, he stops and looks really angry and says "Oh NO!"
• Snuck a pink crayon into his nap one day and when I went to get him out of bed, the wall against his crib slats was covered in pink including the teething rail, some of his sheets, the phone jack...
• Went to pick up Nate from work the other day and while I had my back turned, Gabe had procured a black Expo marker and scribbled large black swirls all over the white walls. I shrieked and sat him firmly on the couch in the break room. I grabbed some cleaning solution and started scrubbing and luckily it came off. Satisfied, I turned around just in time to see Gabriel holding down the blue lever on the water cooler. Water was flooding all over the floor and into the surge protectors with the Tv, DVD player, etc plugged in. When we turned the outlets over, water literally came pouring out.
• I had just finished sewing his Halloween costume and was trying it on him, when he grabbed a red marker, uncapped it, and slashed a mark on his new costume in one fell swoop. Luckily for him, it came out. After I screamed and scared the poop out of him.

Now I know what you're thinking, "Rachel! Take the crayons away!" Yeah, I've already thought of that, and I don't know where they keep coming from. I feel guilty because he will sit and fill an entire notebook up with drawings and so I feel like I should encourage his drawing, but at the expense of my and others property?

Today, I realized it was awfully quiet so I went into his room and found him standing in a pile of raw spaghetti. He has pulled a box of Pasta Roni out of the cabinets and opened it in his room. There was spaghetti everywhere! He gave me a big smile and said "Cereal!" So I made him clean it up but every time he took a step to pick the pasta up, he would shatter the noodles into tiny pieces. Aye caramba.

I'm looking for a little advice. I was thinking about buying him some Crayola Wonder Markers for Christmas to cut back on the wall, furniture messes... or maybe attaching a white board to the wall down low in his room? Any thoughts? I really want to let him color because he loves it so much but it's too messy at this point.